Homecooking with my mom: Vietnamese Lobster Udon

Little family history: while my last name is technically Vietnamese, both of my parents are ethnic Chinese who grew up in Vietnam. We follow Chinese tradition and folklore, but some of the food we eat is obviously Vietnamese in Origin. This is, in my opinion, one of the best thing you can actually eat in this world.

What you need:
4 lobster
1 pot of chicken stock (2 small chicken and 10L of water should do the trick.)
2 onions
Noodle
Corn starch
1 bag of annatto seed

Steps 1: say hi to the lobsters

bleed it out by inserting a chopstick at the bottom of its tail. After, cut off the legs of the lobster and put it in the broth for flavouring. also cook the claw in the broth, but take them out after. Lobster claws are tasty and shouldn't be wasted in a broth only affair.

The head and the Tomalley is the tricky part: you want to split the head in half, clean it up, take out the gills and seperate most of the head with the shell, and put the Tomalley in the head.

This should be more or less the result of this procedure.

power every piece of lobster meat in cornstarch and pan fried it. You should add a bit more on the Tomalley, to make it sure it stays in the shell.

Don't cook it all through, when it is golden brown and starts shrinking a bit, turn it on the other side and repeat the procedure. After remove it from the flames and set aside.

 pan-fried the Tomalley face down in the wok.

it should look like this when it's cooked.

Now back to the broth: This is why you want to cook the lobster claw in the broth

Look at this delicious lobster fat emanating from this claw.

Add the Tomalley in the broth. Gives it such flavour and creaminess, but since we pan fried the Tomalley, it won't melt down in the broth.

Panfried 1 onion until golden brown, add to the broth for flavour.

It should look like this for now.

Annatto seed

 You do not want to burn it, its a slow and low process. Trust me, if you do, it will smell like bad tobacco, and taste worst than it smells. I repeat, low and slow, until the oil gets a beautiful red colour.

 Strain it, throw away the seeds keep the oil.

 Throw your second onion in it, at mid-high, and cook them through, then add it to the broth.

Cook it for 15-20 minutes.

Set off the broth you want to eat now, make a slurry and thicken the soup to the desire consistency. 

heat the udon in the broth, add the lobster the number of lobster that you want, add cilantro and green onion, add fresh thai chili birds pepper/hot sauce if that is your thing. Add salt/fish sauce/msg as much as you like in the broth, but remember, flavour intensifies when you cook, especially true with salt. I also added a pork shank because I'm a fatso. go figures